Aaron Swartz has the summary. Start with the introduction here, and see the full text with links here.
He goes easy on the hoaxers, those who cast stones at Ms. Carson, but you still get the idea if you read the article.
Rachel Carson: Nice lady scientist, no mass murderer
July 26, 2008
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Accuracy, Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Hoaxes, Junk science, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Hoaxes, Junk science, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Power of education
July 20, 2008Thought provoking post at beauty and depravity, taking note of education achievements in South Korea in the past 50 years or so, and then looking at education world wide:
The education system is what made United States the most influential nation and may be the very thing that will lead to its demise. Unequal access to education – even at the most elementary levels – and the rising costs of college education is a debilitating concern.
If you have the time and the energy, UNESCO’s Global Education Digest [190+ pages] is a great read about the trends and voids in education throughout the world. The UIS Global Education Digest monitors the flows of students moving from the primary to secondary level of education across the world. In Africa, only 62% of pupils complete primary education and are therefore ready to pursue their studies, compared to an average completion rate of 94% in North America and 88% in Asia. According to the latest figures in the Digest:
- Africa has the lowest primary completion ratios in the world (see Figure 1). In Europe, almost all countries have ratios exceeding 90%. Out of 45 African countries, only eight reach this level: Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Egypt, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and Tunisia.
- In 19 African countries, the ratios are 50% or lower, meaning that at least every second child does not complete primary school.
- Only about one in three children will complete primary education in six countries: Niger (21%), Guinea-Bissau (27%), Burkina Faso (27%), Chad (32%), Burundi (32%) and Mali (33%).
- 69% adults of tertiary age are enrolled in tertiary education programmes in North America and Europe, but only 5% in sub-Saharan Africa and 10% in South and West Asia. [Tertiary age = post secondary].
This is why EDUCATION is so important in the battle against global poverty. Another reason is I can’t think of anything more sustainable that empowering, equipping, and enabling children through education.
I’m inclined to agree with much of what this fellow, Eugene Cho says about education (he’s a preacher; his politics, especially what appears to be his association with Republicanism, is troubling, but adds piquance to his education views).
How about you? Go read what he says; comment there, come back here and comment here, too. Is he on the right track?
1 Comment | Africa, Economics, Education, Globalization, History, Korea, Public education | Tagged: Africa, Economics, Education, Globalization, Korea, Poverty | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
News from Uganda? DDT, cotton, misreporting
July 13, 2008In continuing efforts to slam environmentalists and Rachel Carson, Instapundit and RWDB complain (whine?) about the European Union’s efforts to block the importation of cotton from Uganda on fears of DDT contamination.
Meanwhile, back in Kampala, the news is that the EU has done the opposite, and is encouraging the use of DDT officially, not blocking its use at all. If DDT is used to fight malaria and not in uncontrolled agricultural use simply to keep products blemish-free, in carefully-controlled sprayings, EU has no complaints.
Is there any western news agency with a stringer in Kampala who could chase this story down? Beck and Reynolds still offer no evidence to back their odd claims, but the story could sure benefit from a solid chunk of reporting from BBC, or Reuters, or Agence France Presse, or someone who could talk with the EU and Uganda officials.
Other resources:
- GlobalHealthReporting.org, Uganda/Malaria site
- Uganda Ministry of Health, malaria facts
- CDC – Malaria control in Uganda
- Update 7/21/2008: Some reports get the story exactly wrong
Full text of report, below the fold.
2 Comments | Africa, Business, Business Ethics, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Hoaxes, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, Business, DDT, Environmental protection, health, Hoaxes, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Instapundit screws up again (Uganda, cotton, DDT)
July 5, 2008Instapundit loves to roil waters, but he’s low on content, and everytime I see it, low on accuracy, too.
This is the entirety of Glenn Beck’sReynolds’s post linking to the rabidly anti-Rachel Carson, RWDB with a rant about DDT that lacks several key points of accuracy:
THE HIGH COST OF fighting malaria.
Six words and he’s wrong already. That’s quite a skill to be dead wrong in six words.
Our friend, Mr. Beck, at RWDB, has a news report from Uganda, and rather than note it and check for accuracy, he uses it as a tee for numerous shots and mulligans against science, scientists, environmentalists, health care workers, the EU, and anyone else who inhabited his latest delerium.
The story out of Africa is that a buyer of organic cotton refused to buy Ugandan cotton due to DDT contamination. True to the line of recent events, it’s not environmentalists who do anything , though the news story finds a way to blame them in the last paragraph. Instead, it’s a businessman.
But here are problems with the story:
- There is no indication EU has anything to do with this failed purchase.
- There is no indication that any environmentalist ever played a role — this is a Dutch purchasing company, shopping for organic cotton.
- There is no indication that Uganda farmers can’t sell their cotton to other buyers.
- There is no reason to presume that the cotton must be sold as “organic.”
- There appears to be no indication of any DDT contamination.
- It’s illegal to spray DDT on cotton in Uganda, as I understand it — if this cotton is contaminated, the problem is that DDT was diverted from malaria control. That’s not a problem for environmentalists — and, according to the PAN story cited above, farmers have incentives to keep it from happening.
Are we to believe that marauding anti-insect people roam Uganda, forcing farmers to steal DDT from health authorities and spray it on their cotton instead, against the farmer’s better interests?
Neither Glenn BeckReynolds at Instapundit nor the other Beck at RWDB bothered to check the facts, nor even to see whether the first face story passes the smell test. Where would DDT contamination come from? Why would a buyer refuse cotton if there’s no DDT contaminant? Why wouldn’t there be tests? Where are the test results? If EU is so down on DDT on cotton, where is the document that says so?
The company in the news story, ineptly named as it is, Bo-Weevil, does exist, it appears, either there or in the Netherlands. That surely is not the only cotton buyer for the EU. The first BoWeevil isn’t an EU company, since it’s headquartered in Tennessee. From their website:
Welcome to Bo-Weevil Eco Sportswear Mfg. LLC., nestled in the hills of Tazewell, Tennessee.
Producers of the most earth friendly clothing on the planet.
Bo-Weevil Eco started manufacturing and supplying clothing with one main vision: “Provide our customers with the highest quality clothing that integrates current fashions with timeless style, to create lifestyle clothing that brings awareness to care what you wear.”
We are a company that practices to restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony. Doing so by being at the forefront of U.S.A. factories producing a line of women’s, men’s, kids and k-9 apparel made by pre-consumer recycled fibres. We are working to create change in the textile industry; to offer one step on the path to more sensible and sustainable use of resources in the production of basic commodities.
So, how does the EU get into this story at all? The second company, I can find listed only through a post at Pesticide Action Network, a source that is not always reliable on such issues.
Smell test: Does this sound accurate to you? When was the last time you saw anyone at Wal-Mart demand organic cotton?
The use of DDT has now affected cotton prices in the region. Patrick Oryang from Lango Cooperative told All Africa, “We are buying cotton at sh500 per kilogram instead of sh750. The country will lose about US$20 million because EUREP-GAP, an EU exporters body, has suspended buying products from the region because the consumers in Europe and America want purely organic products.”
What’s the real story?
Neither Beck nor Reynolds seems to care. They get a dig at environmentalists, so what if Ugandans get malaria?
Update, sorta: News from Uganda, in New Vision, seems to indicate that the EU has okayed the wise use of DDT in Uganda, contrary to claims of an EU ban (July 10 story). You can’t help but wish there were some good, clear reporting of this issue, from BBC or Reuters, or someone in Kampala besides these few, shallow news dailies.
12 Comments | Africa, Business, Business Ethics, DDT, Environmental protection, Science | Tagged: Africa, Business, DDT, Environmental protection, EU, Rachel Carson, Science, Uganda | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
USAID allows DDT use in Africa
June 25, 2008Africa Science News Service reports that USAID signed a contract that allows U.S. money to be used to purchase DDT for Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) against malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
If so, this is one of the final barriers to use of U.S. funds for DDT use. Oddly, the news report offers no details on when or where the contract was made.
DDT use in Uganda was halted pending a suit by Uganda agricultural businesses to stop the spraying. The contract discussed would allow purchase of other insecticides to be used in place of DDT for IRS.
It’s important to note that no environmental organizations have expressed opposition to the limited use of DDT in IRS applications. It may be significant to note that the programs involving indoor spraying fall into the category of integrated pest management, which is what Rachel Carson urged in her 1962 book, Silent Spring.
2 Comments | Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, USAID | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
DDT opposition in Uganda: Business, not environmentalists
June 3, 2008DDT advocates continue to smear Rachel Carson and “environmental groups” with a campaign of made up calumny. To the frustration of scientists, health officials and the gods of fairness, these people continue to get credence from people who should know better, like the contributors at the Volokh Conspiracy (Quiggin and Lambert are the good guys, if you’re not following closely).
Reality is a different story. Business interests appear to have started a false rumor that someone stole a massive quantity of DDT from Uganda’s mosquito control program in an attempt to make the mosquito control guys look incompetent and dangerous. From The Monitor in Kampala, via allAfrica.com:
21 May 2008
Posted to the web 21 May 2008Safina Nambafu
KampalaThe Ministry of Health has denied reports that some people were last week arrested in possession of stolen DDT drugs in Oyam District.
The head of the Malaria Control Programme, Dr Rwakimari, said it was the detractors of the campaign that are inciting the public to spread falsified information.
He was addressing the press at the ministry headquarters on Monday.
Dr Rwakimari said some local leaders are trying to fail the DDT campaign yet over 94% of the district had successfully been sprayed as of last Monday. Last week, civil society organisations led by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists [Nape] held a half day sensitization meeting with stakeholders in Kampala where they collectively condemned the government for carrying out the exercise.
They claimed that many of the crew members had reported strange illnesses, which they fear could have been caused by exposure to DDT. Dr Rwakimari said the government would not just look on as individuals de-campaign the exercise, adding that DDT was being sprayed in eight district in an effort to fight malaria.
Erute North MP Charles Angiro Gutomoi told Daily Monitor that he was bitter that government had had sprayed DDT, saying the exercise threatens the food market.
“National Association of Professional Environmentalists” — in Uganda. Don’t you love it? The group’s website, lacking much information, looks like the site of an astroturf organization to me. The organization exists, though, but DDT doesn’t appear to be a major concern of the group (it earns no mention in their April 2008 report).
There is real opposition to the use of DDT in Uganda, and there is a lawsuit to stop use of DDT. The suit was filed on behalf of nine different agricultural businesses. Farmers claim the spraying is not following the strict guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), and they fear their crops will be contaminated and unsaleable.
Effective malaria fighting uses only small quantities of DDT, in a few places, on a few occasions. The fight also requires use of screens and nets to protect people at night, when the mosquitoes are active in feeding. The New York Times featured a story on the successful Nothing But Nets program today — not a government-run program, not a program favored by the Rachel Carson critics, but a useful and necessary program.
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Health care, Malaria, Politics, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, health, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Business, no environmentalists, oppose DDT in Africa
May 16, 2008Steve Milloy and an entire host of DDT denialists hope you never read any newspaper from Africa. Your ignorance is their best argument.
If you don’t read African newspapers, they can continue to blame environmentalists for any case of malaria that occurs in Africa. They’ll claim, though it’s not true, that environmentalists urged a complete ban on the use of DDT. They’ll argue, falsely, that African governments were bullied into not using DDT by environmentalists, ignoring the fact that some African nations have just never been able to get their kit together to conduct an anti-malaria campaign, while other nations discovered DDT was ineffective — and most of the nations have no love for environmentalists anyway (Idi Amin? Jomo Kenyatta? Who does Milloy think he’s kidding?).
If you don’t read African newspapers, you’ll miss stories like this one, from the Daily Times in Malawi, that say it’s Milloy’s old friends in the tobacco business who stand in the way of modest use of DDT.
If you don’t read African newspapers, you’ll miss stories like this one, from New Vision in Kampala, Uganda, that say it’s the cotton farmers who stand in the way of modest use of DDT.
If Steven Milloy wanted to get DDT used against malaria in Africa, in indoor residual spraying (IRS) campaigns, all he has to do is pick up the phone and ask his friends to allow it to be done.
Someone who will lie to you about their friends’ misdeeds, and try to pin it on a nice old lady like Rachel Carson, will go Charles Colson one better: They’ll walk over your grandmother to do what they want to do. In fact, they’ll go out of their way to walk over your grandmother.
The New Republic seems to have come around to get the story straight. Truth wins in a fair fight — it’s a fight to make sure the fight is fair, though.
John Stossel? Your company doesn’t get tobacco money any more. What’s your excuse? Do you really believe the Bush administration is beholden to environmentalists on this one issue? How long have you been covering politics?
(Texts of news stories below the fold.)
Leave a Comment » | Africa, Business Ethics, Conservation, DDT, Environmental protection, Ethics, Health care, Hoaxes, Junk science, Malaria, Newspapers, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Ethics, health, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
World Malaria Day 2008
April 25, 2008April 25, 2008, is World Malaria Day. I’ve purchased some bednets thorugh Nothing But Nets to help fight malaria. Educating others about the disease is one of the chief goals, too.
Will you help, please?
See the statement from the World Malaria Day community below; pass it along to someone else.
A Malaria Community Statement –
April 25th is World Malaria Day and also Malaria Awareness Day in the United States. In observance of this day and in recognition of the tremendous opportunities to reduce the burden that malaria imposes on the health of people worldwide, we, the Malaria Community, stand in support of the following statement.
We Have Made Progress
Dynamic new public and private partnerships and renewed commitments to strengthen
longstanding efforts to combat malaria are showing positive results. Global partners include
bilateral, multilateral and U.N. programs, faith-based groups, business coalitions and private
foundations. The single largest U.S.-funded malaria program, the President’s Malaria Initiative
(PMI), has accomplished the following:
- Indoor residual spraying benefiting more than 17 million people;
- Procurement and distribution of 5 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets;
- Procurement of 12.6 million artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) treatments and training of more than 28,000 health workers in use of ACTs; and
- Procurement of malaria treatment for more than 4 million pregnant women.
Expanding Access to Current Interventions
It is imperative that stakeholders in the fight against malaria maximize global access to existing proven interventions including insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying with insecticides, and effective medications. Through generous donor contributions, access to essential interventions is improving—yielding dramatic successes in places like Ethiopia and Rwanda where malaria infections and deaths have decreased by more than 50 percent. But the availability of interventions is only half the battle. We must find means to expand delivery of proven interventions, strengthen the capacity of partner countries to administer basic interventions at the community level, share best practices across countries, and motivate individuals to protect themselves and their families.
Investing in New Tools
Simultaneously, we must increase investment in developing new, improved technologies for controlling malaria, including effective drugs, insecticides, and vaccines. Resistance to the most commonly prescribed drugs in most countries has been rapidly increasing. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) must be readily available and affordable, and new therapies must be developed to prevent resistance to ACTs and eventually replace them. The U.S. government’s commitment to expedite the development of highly effective malaria vaccines is needed now, understanding that the process will take significant time and investment. The potential of developing a vaccine of even limited efficacy could have a significant impact on deaths and illness, especially among infants and young children.
Global Problem, Local Solutions
Achieving results will also depend on the effective engagement of national, regional and local governments in the effective deployment of malaria control tools. To guarantee the best use of resources, steps must be taken to ensure that anti-malaria tools, research and investment reach the communities that need them the most, while ensuring that no community is left unsupported. Community-based efforts to deliver malaria prevention and treatment programs must inform the development of the comprehensive global strategy needed so that efforts can be sustained over time. All stakeholders need to be engaged in thoughtful, coordinated planning that brings to bear the best evidence from all levels of efforts to control or eliminate malaria while addressing changes in the epidemiology of the disease.
Note carefully and well that the major organizations fighting malaria neither slam Rachel Carson, whose methods they use to fight malaria today, nor call for a return to wholesale poisoning of Africa and Asia with DDT, but instead urge wise use of resources including an expansion of health care to aid the human victims of malaria. Malaria is the problem, not science.
World Malaria Day is a logical extension of Earth Day; the two are not in opposition.
More Resources:
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Health care, Malaria, Politics, Rachel Carson, Science, Travel, War on Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, health, Politics, Science, World Malaria Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Cocoa buyers stand against DDT use in Uganda
April 1, 2008Stephen Milloy can’t even herd his own cats — why should we listen to him?
While Milloy proclaims junk science and loudly impugns the reputation of a dead woman (Rachel Carson), it’s his business colleagues who demand Uganda avoid DDT, not environmentalists.
New Vision in Kampala reports that a local council has rejected DDT use, and told Uganda’s government the reasons why:
Bundibugyo district council has rejected the Government’s programme of indoor residual spraying of DDT.
During a council meeting last Wednesday, the councillors argued that the anti-malaria project would scare away organic cocoa buyers.
According to the LC5 chairman, Jackson Bambalira, Olam and Esko, the cocoa buyers, threatened to stop buying the produce if the area was sprayed with DDT.
“We know that malaria is a number one killer disease in our district but we have no option. The Government should look for another alternative of containing malaria by supplying mosquito nets but not spraying DDT.”
You and I know that indoor residential spraying (IRS) shouldn’t harm crops in any way, even if DDT is the pesticide used. Can the cocoa growers and buyers be convinced DDT won’t get into their products?
How many stories like this have to appear before the anti-environmentalists stop their unholy campaign against Rachel Carson? Complaining, falsely, about evils of environmentalism doesn’t save anyone from malaria, especially when it’s not environmentalists blocking the campaign against the disease.
8 Comments | Accuracy, Africa, DDT, Debunking, Environmental protection, Health care, Junk science, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, health, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Don’t look now: Businesses ask Uganda to block DDT spraying
March 27, 2008News comes out of Kampala that the delay in implementing the use of DDT in a Rachel Carson-approved program of integrated pest management — for indoor residual spraying only — faces strong opposition.
From environmentalists? No, you’ll recall that Environmental Defense, the group that led the fight for a ban on broadcast use of DDT in the U.S. has been pressuring the Bush administration and others to use DDT appropriately for years.
The opposition comes from Uganda businesses.
“Zero tolerance on DDT spraying is the feeling of the private sector. Even at the East African Community DDT is a condemned chemical. Government should look for other alternatives,” Mr David Lule, the managing director of Hortexa, a horticultural exporting association to the EU [European Union], said.
Don’t look for corrections or apologies from the pro-poison lobbyists yet. Junk “scientist” Steven Milloy, the “Competitive Enterprise Institute” (which claims to represent businesses) and others have yet to correct any of the many errors they’ve made in their slash-and-burn campaign for poisoning Africa. Why would they change now?
1 Comment | Accuracy, DDT, Junk science, Politics, Rachel Carson, Rampant stupidity, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Junk science, Malaria, mosquitoes, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
DDT and health effects on children
February 25, 2008DDT can interfere with the feedback loop in the pituitary gland, which releases the milk-producing hormone prolactin. Studies show that exposure to DDT at critical points in pregnancy or just after childbirth can reduce the output of breast milk, or even dry it up. In such instances the mother will turn to formula, which is expensive. And in Africa formula feeding often leads to another death sentence for babies: diarrhea (infants have no immunity to the microbes that abound in contaminated drinking water throughout much of the continent). Here, then, exposure to DDT may cause as swift and bleak an outcome as exposure to a mosquito.
On Earth is a publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
2 Comments | Africa, DDT, Environmental protection, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson | Tagged: Africa, DDT, environment, Malaria, Public health | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Seattle Times special on fighting malaria
February 4, 2008Dr. Bumsted at Biocultural Science and Management alerted me to the Seattle Times’ special section on fighting malaria. The extensive set of articles ran in the newspaper on Friday, February 1, 2008. You can order a copy of the special reports in a separate section here.
Child suffering from malaria. Seattle Times, February 1, 2008
Photo caption from Seattle Times: “Malaria strikes hardest at young children, such as 5-month-old Mkude Mwishehe, who lies comatose in the regional hospital at Morogoro, Tanzania. Babies often die as a result of fever, anemia and brain damage caused when the mosquito-borne parasites destroy blood cells and clog blood vessels.”
Seattle’s news organizations look at malaria in large part because malaria is a target of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The package features outstanding photography of malaria-affected Tanzania and Zambia, good interviews, in-depth reporting, good writing, and multi-media presentations that might be suitable for classroom work. The multi-media pieces could be used as examples of what students should be doing with PowerPoint projects.
The Seattle Times’ work on the fight against malaria is a tour-de-force masterpiece of what a newspaper can do to promote the public good. The newspaper demonstrates the heights writers can aspire to. Good on ’em, as Molly Ivins would say.
I have not found a single mention of experts calling for more DDT, as the junk-science purveyors do. There are several attempts to urge DDT by readers in the Q&A session, but the expert malaria fighters are careful with their facts — it’s a real education. Read the articles. The research and the work against malaria pushed by the Gates Foundation is exactly the research and work that DDT-happy advocates frustrate with their political screeds.
Which group does more to save Africans, those who fight malaria as described in The Seattle Times, or those who rail at environmentalists and call for more DDT?
2 Comments | Africa, Citizenship, Health care, Heroes, Malaria, Newspapers, Public education, Public health, Research, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Gates Foundation, health, Malaria, Public health | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
New film, “Malaria Parasites,” rips your heart out
January 28, 2008One more problem that DDT cannot solve, and that the thoughtless campaigns for DDT only make worse. The film comes from Journeyman Productions.
Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.ipextv.tv posted with vodpod
♦
Leave a Comment » | Africa, Business Ethics, DDT, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, Business, DDT, Ethics, Junk science, Malaria, Media | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Uganda to start DDT use; funding delayed program start
January 19, 2008Use of DDT would have started earlier, the article says, but for lack of money.
So, participants in the defense of wise environmental policy and Rachel Carson, against the scurrilous charges of junk science purveyors, should take note:
- There is no ban on use of DDT against mosquitoes, in a serious, controlled program of integrated pest management.
- No environmentalist is to blame for the lack of DDT use in Uganda (and probably elsewhere). As with anti-malaria programs worldwide, lack of funding or lack of organization generally is the reason for any lack of action against malaria.
Leave a Comment » | Africa, DDT, Junk science, Malaria, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, environmentalism, Junk science, Malaria, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Park your camel, the music’s begun
January 12, 2008As long as we’re in Mali anyway, why not arrive a couple of days early for this other music festival? Michael Kessler writes about the Festival du Chameau in the Sydney Morning Herald, “The sound of the desert blues”:
A week ago, when the doctor was jabbing me with yellow fever, polio and hepatitis shots and supplying malaria tablets, I’d tried imagining what a camel festival would look like. The Festival du Chameau [in its third year in 2008] is the brainchild of Tinariwen, the international darlings of world music – a group of Touareg nomadic musicians, purveyors of the desert blues, whose political past combined with their hypnotic electric guitars make them local heroes in this, the Adrar des Iforas region of Mali.
Toronto Globe and Mail reporter Stephanie Nolen accompanied a group of Inuit musicians to Mali, documented in a blog for the newspaper, Trail to Timbuktu; from her reports, we know the festival is underway, music is on the dunes:
There’s no down-in-front with a camel, really.
The 8th Festival in the Desert began a couple of hours ago, with several thousand people sitting and standing in the cool, white sand at the edge of the oasis at Essekane. The sun set just as the event kicked off, silhouetting robed men, veiled women and camels on all the surrounding ridges. On the small, raised stage there were speeches by notables including the local governor and Mali’s Minister of Culture.
Then the music began, with the opening provided by Tamnana, a traditional ensemble of men and women from Essekane who drum, chant, clap and ululate. They’re a big hit with the locals, and it turns out that demonstrations of musical appreciation hereabouts take the form of camel tricks. When the spirit moves them, nomads on camelback suddenly charge down from the dunes to the front of the stage, where they coax their camels down to “walk” on their front knees – a much-admired feat. Or they dismount and launch sudden sword fights with phantom opponents, before swinging back up and charging the camel back and forth in front of the stage a few times. It’s the Tuareg version of the mosh pit, and it’s magical to watch, but it does tend to blot out the action on the stage.
Inuit performers from Canada, in the sands at the Essakane Festival, Mali, 2008; photo by Stephanie Nolen, Toronto Globe and Mail.
News still travels slowly out of Mali’s desert, though. Most of the news about the Mali Festival in the Desert comes in the form of festival veterans spreading the music, in other, far-flung venuues.
Influences of the Essakane Festival of the Desert reach Salina, Kansas, where the Salina Journal talks about the music of Toubab Crewe, a group of North Caronlians who have performed at the big Mali festival in the past.
Oregon feels it, too: MacArthur Foundation grant recipient Corey Harris, a veteran bluesman whose work was featured in the PBS series on the blues, especially his work in Mali with the late Ali Farka Toure, performs at the Rogue Valley Blues Festival in Ashland, Oregon, on January 18 (that’s the Southern Oregon Mail Tribune, not Mali Tribune).
Mali, and Africa, have much more than just these few festivals. Why should we concern ourselves with the Essakane festival at all? Africa. PopMatters carries a column by journalist Mark Reynolds, reviewing events and arts in Africa in 2007, with a look to 2008. It’s a survey of events and publications, but it’s a good backgrounder for a high school student in Africa concerns, an article that should suggest connections to be made in geography, history, government and economics courses.
Thanks to Ann at Peoples Geography for the correction — Sydney Morning Herald.
1 Comment | Africa, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Lesson plans, Music, World history | Tagged: Africa, Entertainment, geography, Mali Essakane, Music, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 